Government to keep a close eye on foreign students from April 1

The home ministry has asked the human resource ministry to ensure that all education institutions put in place an online tracking system.

NEW DELHI: The government will closely monitor foreign students from April 1, giving them a unique identification number and making recognized institution contribute to an online database that will regularly update their performance and conduct.

Officials said the government currently has no proper system to track the activities of foreign students, but this gap will be filled by the home ministry's e-Governance plan that includes the Foreign Students Information System, which is an online database that will track movement of foreign students in the country.

The idea is to create a central database of foreign students in India "to monitor their activities while studying in various educational institutions" in the country, government officials said.

Institutions, which admit foreign students, will have to register itself online with the Foreign Residents Registration Office. Once the registration is approved, each institution will be given a unique identity number in the Foreign Students Information System (FSIS). The institution will then have to enter information on every foreign student admitted into the database.

Each foreign student will be assigned a unique ID that will be used for tracking. Details provided by the institution will be linked with the Foreign Residents Registration Office entry, which gives details of residency permits.

Details that will be available will include a photograph, passport and visa information, admission details such as course of study, date of joining will have to be provided. If a foreign student changes their course or programme of study, this detail will also have to be provided.

Once in every three months, the institution will need to enter the academic performance of all foreign students enrolled. Results of examination conducted during the assessment period will also have to be provided.

The institution is also required to provide information about the student's general conduct, especially if the conduct is considered to be bad or doubtful. Information on attendance in classes, academic performance, and general conduct will be part of this online database. It will be used to generate pertinent reports from time to time.

The institution will be required to provide details of student exit - that is date and reason for leaving the institution. This would include completion of the course, a student being asked to leave or that the student left the institution for reasons of their own.

The student's record is saved in the database even after they have left the institution. This will allow for retrieving the information, in case the student seeks admission in another institution anywhere in the country. The project is being rolled out initially in Chennai, bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Kolkata, Kochi, Kozhikode, Thiruvanthapuram, Lucknow and Goa.